Roach Motel, a Slash Fic About Slash Fic
by The Black Sluggard
Summary: "Heat Wave" has been a big success. However, fan interpretation of two of the book's minor characters leaves Detectives Ryan and Esposito both a little concerned... Slash, Ryan/Esposito. Rated M for adult dialog.
1. Prologue

**Prologue: Which, Being About a Prologue, Is Somewhat Recursive**

_The rain hissed down in a barrage of fat, heavy droplets._

_Outside, November reigned, miserable and cold. A stiff wind drove the rain into every crevice, penetrating the alley with tremendous force. Raindrops ricocheted off the buildings that rose on either side, pelting the roof of the dark sedan where it was tucked away, pinging sharply like a hail of bullets. Inside, the heater was turned on full, and the haze that had begun at the edges of the windshield had finally crept in, blinding the windows with fog like filmy, gray cataracts._

_Ochoa swiped his hand against the glass with a frustrated noise, clearing his view of the opposite street. Right now, Detective Heat was in that abused old brownstone meeting with some source of Rook's who the journalist thought might be able to shed some light on their current case. Rook had been sure the man would be willing to help, but there was always the possibility that bringing the police into the complicated equation of their acquaintance could backfire with...uncertain results._

_For that reason_ _Ochoa was stuck waiting—probably for nothing, though you could never be too careful. Normally, the assignment would never have bothered him. He'd certainly been on enough stake-outs and late-night watches that often the cramped, fogged interior of the unmarked car was almost cozy._

_But tonight, to Ochoa, it felt like a coffin. _

_Any other night, the long and mind-achingly boring hours of the assignment would have been passed in conversation ranging from the gloriously inane to the remarkably thought-provoking. This night, however, apart from the gun-metal sound of the rain, the car was silent as a grave. _

_Ochoa spared a glance at his partner. Raley sat in the passenger seat, his attention apparently fixed on the building as well. Which would have made sense if his side of the window hadn't been fogged completely opaque for the last twenty minutes. Not for the first time, Ochoa forced himself to recognize the fact that something was off._

_It had been for the past few weeks. It was subtle at first, so much so that Ochoa still would be hard pressed to name just what had brought it to his attention. It was like listening to a familiar song played without the bass, all the words were the same, but none of the notes seemed to fall into the right place. Something was suddenly absent in the usual easy chemistry he had with his partner. And damned if he knew what it was._

_It seemed as though the harder he tried to understand what was going on, the worse it got. It was a lazy cliché, but he and Raley normally worked like a well oiled machine. They'd always been good at anticipating each other, sometimes to an uncanny degree. A peculiar unspoken communication existed between them that had earned them their nickname around the precinct. He'd wished more than once he and his wife worked that well... _

_But lately that communication had broken down. _

_Eventually, Ochoa thought he'd figured it out. It seemed once or twice that his partner was second guessing himself. It had slowed things, thrown off the normal rhythm. And in trying to compensate, without even being conscious of it, Ochoa only seemed to cause Raley to withdraw. Their conversations had become shorter and less frequent when they were about anything besides work. _

_It had yet to reach the point where Raley avoided him, and he hoped sincerely that it wouldn't. But sometimes he couldn't help the feeling that the man was slipping away right in front of him. Like right now. It was unnerving to see Raley this quiet._

_And, for the life of him, Ochoa still didn't understand _ why_._

_Shifting his grip on the wheel idly, Ochoa sighed. He'd been hoping that whatever it was would burn itself out on its__own, but it looked like it was all on him. Time for them both to man up._

_With a subtle movement, he lowered his hand to the steering column and flipped on the windshield wipers. The blades scraped loudly against the glass, and Raley gave a startled jump. The glance and weak smile he threw Ochoa seemed a tad anxious, but at least it had broken him out of his daze. Thumbing off the wipers once more, Ochoa looked over at Raley._

_"Are you ready to talk about it, bro?"_

_A confused line sprang up between Raley's eyebrows. It never ceased to amaze him how innocent the man could look, especially when caught off guard. _

_"Talk about what?"_

_"This whatever-it-is that's been going on, what? Two weeks now?"_

_Ochoa swore he didn't imagine Raley's whole body jerk subtly in an uneasy twitch. Which meant whatever-it-was Raley _knew_what it was, and hadn't seen fit to talk to _him_ about it. That didn't sit right with him at all. And it definitely didn't fill him full of optimism. Schooling his expression to keep the flare of anger from showing in his eyes, Ochoa dug in._

_"Something's been on your mind, and that something is getting in the way of...hell. _ Everything_ else."_

_Raley looked away, back through the blank glass, probably hoping that Heat would save him from facing the topic of their conversation. Or maybe it was just Ochoa that he had trouble facing._

_"Whatever problem you have with me, we need to deal with it." _

_"I don't have a_ problem_ with—" _

_"Then you need to figure out what it _ is_," Ochoa bit out sharply, cutting him off, "because it's wrecking what we have going." _

_He paused a moment, letting the heat drain from his voice. _

_"You're the best partner I've ever had," Ochoa said finally. Weakly. "I don't want to lose that."_

_As much as it felt like a betrayal to all the rest to admit it, especially out loud, it was true. In his entire career, there wasn't anybody he'd worked better with than Detective Calvin Raley. So it hurt that those words caused Raley to flinch. He looked almost as though Ochoa had smacked him. His reply, when it came, was so quiet that Ochoa very nearly didn't catch it. _

_"Neither do I..."_

_The air inside the car felt heavy, and Ochoa found any reply that he might have had choked right out of him._ _The rain swallowed their silence. The occasional glance would catch Raley looking at him, pretending not to. But for the most part he stayed turned away, finger tracing meaningless shapes in the condensation on the window. Ochoa didn't like it—he _really_ didn't like it—but some nameless sense was screaming at him to let it go. He let his head fall against the cool glass of the window and shut his eyes, willing the rain sounds to drive the whole mess out of his head._

_Maybe it worked a little too well, he figured as he almost nodded out, forehead sliding against the slick glass. If Heat finished up her meeting and caught him napping he'd never hear the end of it. Sitting forward slightly he rubbed his eyes, looking around the car for the thermos he'd brought. He spotted it on the dashboard in front of Raley. With a sigh he leaned over to retrieve it._

_He never made it._

_Perhaps he'd done more than nod off for a second, because it took him a while to process the feel of Raley's lips on his..._


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One: In Which Life Begins to Imitate Art**

Up to his elbows in paperwork—as usual—Javier Esposito sat back in his chair. Tilting his head, he was rewarded with a savage pop. Smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, he spared a glance at his partner. The neck cracking usually made Ryan a little queasy—a fact which had struck Esposito as odd after he'd learned Kev had dated a girl who drank blood. He was slightly disappointed this time however, as it didn't seem as though Ryan had even noticed.

From the stack of files on Ryan's desk—on the side Esposito knew he habitually set his "done" pile—he'd already finished his share of the paperwork, leaving Esposito to wonder just what had him so engrossed. Ryan was leaning forward in his chair staring at the computer, scrolling through some list. An occasional smile twitched on the other man's lips, and he'd click on a link.

Esposito gave a soft grunt before reaching for his next file. At least _one_ of them was having fun.

Twenty-five minutes later he had just wrapped up and was pondering heading out to grab something to eat when his thoughts were interrupted by a strangled noise. It was so odd and incongruous that it took him a while to realize that it had come from his partner. Ryan was still staring at the screen, only now it was with a shocked, frozen expression of horror. It was so intense, in fact, that for a moment Esposito's heart fell into his stomach. Maybe someone had died?

"What's the matter, bro?" He asked quietly, coming up slowly behind his partner's chair. "You're looking a little pale-er."

Ryan didn't make a sound, though his hand lifted helplessly to gesture toward the screen. Javier let his eyes scan down the text on the page. When he leaned over to take the mouse, he felt Ryan flinch slightly in his chair. His head tilted slightly, an amused smile forming as he realized what Ryan had been reading. His partner could be such a geek sometimes, and never more than when it involved their cameo in Castle's book.

Though, that amusement evaporated abruptly when he reached the end of the chapter. The choking sound he made was very nearly identical.

"That's—" He stated numbly, mind scrambling for words. There really were none.

"Not cool." Ryan managed. His voice sounded incredibly small.

"_So_ not cool." Esposito agreed, taking a step back from his partner's chair.

"We_—_"

"Need to do something about this."

Castle was standing in front of the coffee machine when the detectives managed to corner him.

They were very discreet about it. One moment they were just there, each with an arm hooked through the crooks of his elbows. Before he knew it he was standing in the precinct's men's room with Ryan locking the door and Esposito leaning menacingly into his space.

"We need to talk."

"Aw, fellas, if this is about the shaving cream, I thought we were good."

"_Capillary damage_, Castle." Ryan stated emphatically as he turned away from the door. There was an odd frown creasing his forehead as he flicked a quick look at his partner. "But, uh, no, that's not what this is about."

Esposito picked up the conversation, drawing on his partner's momentum. "This is about the defamation of our good names."

"Defamation..." Castle's face slackened slightly as the answer occurred to him, his tone growing amused and his expression a little indulgent, almost condescending. "Wait, this is about the _book_?"

The two of them stood with arms crossed and matching, stony expressions. Esposito pulled this off far better than his partner, but an uncharacteristic moment of wisdom told Castle that now was definitely not the time to say so. Fierceness wasn't an expression that most people could picture on Ryan's face. It certainly wasn't something that many had seen, but Castle had witnessed it himself. He'd seen it the night Holliwell had come stumbling their way leaking blood from a bullet, with Esposito was nowhere in sight—a hot, wrathful blaze burning in those open blue eyes like a laser. The intensity facing him down now was only a pale ghost of that fire, but still formidable, and _not_ something Castle wanted directed his way.

Running his hands over his jacket to fix the wrinkles left by their assault , Castle straightened his posture, offering the two detectives a smile.

Maybe it was his apparent lack of concern that did it. Then again, perhaps it was simply reluctance on their parts to put whatever had gotten under their skin into words. From the way they each threw the other an uncertain, uncomfortable glance, Castle thought it was almost certainly latter.

"Ryan," he addressed the detective earnestly, "I know for a _fact_ you've read _Heat Wave_... In fact, you read it _twice._ You didn't have a problem either one of those times, and the new book isn't even finished yet. My characters were _completely_ on the level. So what new bit of information prompted all this?"

Before either man had a chance to answer, his own question inspired Castle to take a second glance at the pair.

When properly inspired, Ryan and Esposito could, just the two of them, present a defensive line any pro football team could be proud of. Castle had spent almost a year at the 12th with observation the official goal of his presence. While most of that observation had, quite obviously and naturally, been focused on Beckett, it was not exclusive to her. One thing Castle had noticed early on was how at ease the two men were in each others' personal space. He remembered the first time he'd noticed, watching them as they mulled over the facts of a case, each lost in their own thoughts as they scanned the evidence on board, standing nearly shoulder to shoulder.

Shoulder to shoulder, or back to back, or one headed off on Beckett's orders with the other following close behind. Castle had realized at that moment just how closely linked the two men were in his mind. Imagination seemed to treat them almost as one entity, inextricably merged so that the thought of one without the other was nearly as alien as the thought of Kate without those knockout legs...

Almost tragic.

At first he had thought it was some unconscious partner thing, something that came naturally from spending all hours with a person that you trusted with your life. But the more time he spent at the precinct and the more officers he had come to know, the more it had become plain to Castle that the bond he saw was something singular to the two men. And thus the seeds of inspiration for Roach had been sewn.

The word "tragic" crept its way into his mind again during his brief study of the two men, and it was with a sliver of discomfort that he realized why. Esposito and Ryan had been prepared for him to try and make a break for it, something he unashamedly would admit had crossed his mind. Ryan had locked the door, but still there was always an outside chance. They stood in front of him, arms crossed, feet spread, presenting as solid a human wall as any he had seen two men make. But...

There was a gap.

Physically it could not have been more than six inches, but for the men he knew it might as well have been a mile. It struck him as ironic that their attempt at intimidation should leave them both seeming so vulnerable. A vulnerability he realized had been visible in their earlier glances, though he only now noticed: Hesitance, uncertainty, screaming at him that something was _wrong_.

"Alright," he said, his train of thought leaving him uncharacteristically sober. "What's up, guys?"

Moments later, sitting at Esposito's desk, Castle couldn't help but think he should be laughing. It _should_ be funny. And perhaps it would have been if it hadn't managed such an obvious change in the two men. But the anxiety, the diffidence, _that_ was serious. Though, as his eyes scanned the page, the detectives seemed bound and determined to shatter his powerful moment of insight with their _kvetching_.

Ryan had maintained a running monologue as he read, rambling about "Elton John" and "Beefcake" and something about the elevator scene on page forty-nine. It was public knowledge around the station that Esposito had never read the book. He had always been more than vocal around the station that he never _would_ read the book. His comment that _quote _reading a hot scene about Kate would be like watching my sister have sex _unquote_ had managed to ruin a whole week by invoking the subtle yet terrifying wrath of Beckett, a fact which soon had _also_ become public knowledge. Despite this, Javier maintained a counterpoint of small noises of agreement with his partner, as though everything Ryan was saying was completely accurate.

"All completely out of context." Esposito broke in finally as Ryan paused for a moment, scrambling for either breath or more of his damning 'proof'. "It's _libel_ is what it is."

Castle could not help but note that his solid, reasonable tone nonetheless managed to hold a sharp edge of menace.

"_First_ of all, I'm a novelist," He chimed in cautiously, closing the window and doing his best to scrub what he had just read from his mind. A remarkably diplomatic, unconcerned smirk was in place by the time he swung the chair around to face the detectives. "You can't charge me with libel for a work of fiction. And second... Your problem isn't one of _con_text, it's a problem of _sub_text."

Warming up to the sound of his own voice, Castle stood, pushing ahead with his explanation.

"See, that subtext Rook and Heat keep talking about in the book can be a powerful tool, but it's also a double edged sword. If an author is subtle enough, they can convey their meaning without actually stating it outright. When the reader has to put it all together themselves, it's so much more personal. But, at the same time, you can't stop the fans from seeing what they want to see. I learned the hard way with Derek Storm that _nothing_ can.

"This is why I never read the fanfictions…" Castle muttered wearily. "Those people _scare_ me. If you're ever feeling especially adventurous, try looking up a story called '_Stormchaser_'..."

He trailed off, unable to suppress a shudder at the memory.

That goofy line found its way back onto Ryan's forehead, the squirming effort at digesting the situation visible in his eyes. Esposito's eyebrows dropped above his puzzled frown. Castle could tell they still weren't sure. He took a step forward with a sigh, laying a reassuring hand on each one of their shoulders

"Don't worry about it." He insisted, stepping past them toward the elevator. "It's not the book, it's not you two. It just...happens. Trust me. Patterson has this problem like _nobody's _business."

Halting at the elevator, he took a final look over his shoulder at the two men. He hadn't fixed the problem, at least not entirely. It was possible, even likely that the two would get over this weird bump on their own. He'd just have to keep a concerned eye on the situation.

Kate would never forgive him if he broke her detectives.

When Castle had gone, Esposito and Ryan remained for a moment, dumbly trying to digest the situation. Ryan was the first to shake himself out of it, a thoughtful frown on his face. Esposito looked at his partner, raising a questioning eyebrow.

"So..." The curiosity in his partner's eyes and tone were so plain and unguarded that Esposito couldn't help but immediately know why.

"Oh _hell_ no," he warned Ryan, the corner of his mouth pulling in a lazy smile. "You _know_ that was a trap. I mean, we both know how twisted Castle can be, so if _he's_ disturbed..."

"Then we _so_ don't want to know." Ryan finished, shaking his head.

With that it seemed the situation had been defused. The day wound down without much noticeable difference from any other, and if conversation in the elevator on the way down was a little more subdued, neither felt the need to mention it. They confirmed their plans to play Madden that Friday, agreed on who would bring the beer and who would pay for the pizza.

Neither of them did end up looking up "_Stormchaser_", though Ryan found himself typing it into the search exactly twice. But, later that night, a fan-writer by the name of "4n6goddess" did noticed two new reviews added to the prologue of her story, "_Roach Motel_". One was from a commenter called "fab54th", who simply informed her that she had way too much time on her hands. By contrast, "TheOriginalRaleyFan" left a far more specific critique, going on at length about how rude it was to twist the characters like that.

If she had a response for either, it was left unsent.


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two: Which Is Actually "Chapter One"  
**

_Things had gone down hill pretty swiftly after that._

_Unfortunately for everyone, the south-bound shift had taken the form of Detective Heat's call for back-up. Calvin Raley thought he might have set a new world record for response time, though, he was forced to admit, even without Heat's call he would have been out of the car just as fast. For the next few frantic minutes, Raley had been too focused on the pursuit of their fleeing suspect to truly acknowledge what had happened in the car and what consequences it might have. But as soon as their guy was cuffed and shoved into the back of the Roach Coach the adrenaline had begun to filter out of his system, and that last image of Ochoa's face came rushing back into his brain._

_His mind turned over that mental snapshot of his partner, frozen with a kind of sick shock like a bus was bearing down on him, and for a moment awareness of pretty much everything else slipped away from him. _

_When the first queasy wave of horror receded, he found he'd wandered away from the car and was leaning against the wall in the alley. His hands felt frozen where they braced him up, resting against the rough, wet brickwork. The dwindling rain dripped down lazily now, tapping heavily against his shoulders, rare droplet sneaking under his collar to trace a freezing trail down the back of his neck. Eyes focused blankly on the wall in front of him, Raley forced himself to take in a deep lung-full of cold, damp air. He held it for a tense second before the breath escaped in a ragged cloud, dissolving into a weak litany._

_"I fucked up, I fucked up, I fucked _up_..." He let himself sink against the wall, face against his leather-clad forearm, smothering the words in the crook of his elbow. _

_It seemed impossible for Ochoa not to recognize the event that started it all. Xavier thought it had been going on for two weeks, but Raley knew for a fact that it was closer to three. _

_Three weeks since they responded to that shoot out in Midtown. _

_The exact moment was etched irrevocably into Raley's memory: the sound of the gunshot, the sight of Ochoa's head jerking back suddenly. He remembered how the world had turned gray around the edges. Four seconds were all that had passed, his heart frozen in his chest, before Ochoa had looked up at him with wide brown eyes and brushed a shaking hand across his bloodied cheek. _

_The bullet had hit the wall right next to Ochoa's head, so close that the EMTs had ended up pulling fragments of chipped brick out of his face before dressing the wound. Just two ragged scratches, neither more than an inch long nor very deep, requiring nothing more than a couple of butterflies to keep them closed. Nothing to brag about around the station, definitely, and soon after the case was wrapped up it seemed as though Ochoa had forgotten them completely._

_Raley couldn't. Nothing he did could erase the fact that, for the space of four impossibly long seconds, he'd thought his partner was dead. _

_For the next week, Raley had carried this cold, hollow feeling in his gut. Rather than fading with time, that feeling grew heavier every time he caught sight of the white dressings standing out against his partner's dark skin. The weight of it sat undigested for a week before Raley finally recognized it for what it was: in those four seconds, Xavier had been gone, and the though of having to live life without him had been unbearable. _

_Not alarming, or horrifying, but unbearable. _Impossible_._

_Thinking about it even now left him feeling empty, dead. He had known they were close, but it wasn't until then he had been forced to admit how much so. They had only been working together a handful of years, which in the grand scheme of things was not that long. Yet, nearly from the beginning, they had been as much friends as they had been partners. Now that he had cause to really examine the whole thing, Raley realized that it was far more than that. Somewhere along the line, Xavier Ochoa had become someone that he _needed_ to have in his life._

_And once he saw it, Raley found himself seeing a lot of other things _very_ differently._

_Suddenly he found himself over-analyzing everything. Every smile, every wink, every smirk, every nudge. The off-hand innuendos and casual touches he'd never given a second thought. Even their stupid fist-bumps. For the first time in their partnership, he found himself struggling to know what to say and do, how to act. With a single thought, he had poisoned every interaction he had with the man. And by the end of that second week, he'd felt ready to crawl out of his skin._

_He wasn't gay. He had promised himself he wasn't going to look at it like that. _

_It wasn't necessarily sexual. There were other ways of needing someone, he told himself. Lord knew over the last week he had repeated the phrase "I love him like a brother" in his head enough times it had practically lost all meaning. Not that any amount of coaching did much good when Xavier would clap a hand on his shoulder that seemed to burn him right through his suit. But it had been his last line of defense against this..._thing_. His last hope of not tipping his hand and letting it spill out into his job. _

_Because it was always there, threatening to pull his attention away from work, and he knew if he wasn't careful eventually Ochoa would call him on it. Or Heat. Or the captain, or Rook. Or, God forbid––_

_God forbid he'd actually act on it._

_The sound of a car door slamming pulled him back to reality. He pushed away from the wall with a grimace, pulling fingers roughly through his damp hair as he turned around. _

_He could just make out his partner's face watching him behind the windshield, though the fog rendered his expression unreadable. Jameson Rook sat in the seat next to him, turned and apparently chatting up their scumbag in the back seat. Raley's gaze dropped, unable to watch as Ochoa started the engine and drove away. He almost missed when Detective Heat walked up to him._

_"Everything okay Rales?" She asked, wearing an expression of cautious concern._

_He managed to respond with a feeble nod, though even that much felt like a filthy lie. The concern remained as he followed her to her car. While he knew she wasn't convinced he was certain Heat wouldn't push for him to explain. Nikki was a private woman and outside of the job-and the break-room refrigerator-she respected other people's boundaries accordingly. She couldn't ignore his melt-down, he knew, but it hadn't been severe enough for her to pry. _

_For a while they drove in silence, Heat giving him plenty space in which to ruminate upon how badly he'd fucked it up. There really wasn't any other way to describe he had just done. This whole situation displayed how mind-numbingly stupid he could be, but even then he wasn't dumb enough to think that his stupid infatuation would go anywhere. Xavier was _married_for Christ's sake. _

_But he still hadn't been willing to entertain the idea of moving on. He didn't want another partner, and until now he had managed to delude himself into thinking he didn't need one. The plan had been to never, _ever_ let Ochoa know how he felt. Even if it meant following him around nursing this pathetic puppy-crush for the rest of his life..._

_Yeah. He'd so blown that one._

_At least now Ochoa would end up taking the initiative for him. It was just a question now of how. Either his future ex-partner would approach Captain Montrose discretely or he was about to become the next hot-button topic of locker-room gossip. That thought made Raley swipe a hand over his mouth with a sick groan, because if it was the second it most likely meant his career was over. Even if you _could_ be out and a cop these days, it sure as hell wasn't easy. And your partner was strictly off-limits. If the news broke out that way, he might as well have a target on his back._

_He realized there was oneway he could get an early idea of what Ochoa's next actions would be. Nikki's eyes seemed focused on the road, but he wasn't going to kid himself that his earlier distressed had gone unnoticed. He took in a deep, slow breath through his nose, hoping that his voice would resemble something close to normal when he spoke._

_"Did he say why?" He asked, and though his voice came out rather quiet he was reasonably satisfied that the squirming uncertainty in his stomach hadn't threaded itself into the question._

_Heat's brow furrowed slightly, and he had to admit her confusion seemed genuine._

_"Did tell you why he didn't want to ride with me?" He clarified, his voice a little louder, though the longer he had to wait for the answer, the surer he was he wasn't going to like it._

_"Oh, _that_." Heat's face twisted slightly in distaste, and Raley tasted a jolt of copper on his tongue. "Rook was right about the mistress. Which is fine for the investigation, but if I had to listen to him gloat about it all the way back to the station I was going to end up shooting him."_

_Relief hit him so hard his ears rang, his neck suddenly feeling like rubber. He managed a feeble laugh and Heat looked over at him with a tight smile._

_"I know you two have been having some problems." She said finally, eyes still on the traffic ahead of them. "Whatever they are you'll figure it out. You two make a great team. Don't ever doubt that." _

_It was the sort of compliment he knew she didn't give lightly. For a moment, he thought about what his partnership had meant to him before Midtown. Then he tried to put himself in Ochoa's shoes. Maybe... _

_The uncertainty of hope only made the whole thing that much worse._

_They passed the rest of the drive in silence. When they pulled back into the garage, the Roach Coach was waiting in its usual space. Raley considered the timing for a moment and figured Ochoa would probably still be at the station. Maybe waiting to talk to him. Maybe in Montrose's office. Standing in the cold underground lot, Raley blamed his shiver on still-damp clothes. He stared at the elevator that would take him up to the station, to his partner, to whatever was going to come next. It was a short fifteen feet that he walked every day, but right now it felt a million miles away. _

_"Go home, Cal."_

_Looking up, Raley saw Heat's eyes were soft with concern. For all that compassion was Nikki's trademark when dealing with the families of victims, it was rare for her to open that up to another officer. Seeing this much now spoke volumes to how close everything he was carrying lay to the surface. He was cold and bone-weary, under the fluorescents lighting the garage he didn't want to think about how he looked. Probably like hell. Considering that was straight where he was headed, it seemed poetically fitting. _

_Her tone made it sound like more than a suggestion. He wavered for a moment, but Heat was a hard person to argue with. Right now he didn't have the strength. That was what he told himself, later, as he unlocked his apartment. And as he picked fitfully at his plate of leftovers. And as he lay awake in bed. Like his earlier attempts at self-coaching, it didn't seem to do much good._

_He still felt like a coward._


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three: In Which Art Painfully Imitates Life**

Ryan reached out with a loose arm as he sat back in his chair. Snatching his beer from the desk beside the computer he took a long drink, bowed his head, and with a slow deep breath tried to let the tension loosen in his neck and shoulders. None of it seemed to be working. He replaced the bottle back down onto the dewy ring it had left on the desk with a weary sigh. Pressing thumb and forefinger to rub dry, tired eyes, he lifted his gaze back to the screen.

Four days ago, if someone had even suggested he might take another look at that story he'd found, Ryan probably would have laughed in their face. Or punched them in the face, if they weren't a friend. Considering the only people that knew about the whole thing were Castle and Javi... Castle was an alright guy. Ryan probably wouldn't have hit him. Well. Not very _hard_. If someone asked that same question tomorrow morning he would still laugh, but it would be a very different laugh. Certainly the slightly nervous edge would be detectable to a anyone who knew him well. He'd just have to hope no one asked. Or even talked about the story, period.

Because if the subject came up in conversation Ryan wasn't sure he could keep that nervous, betraying laugh from escaping on it's own.

It definitely wasn't anything he had planned on doing when he'd come home. He had just ended a long shift, a rough case, and come home to a find a post-it from Jenny saying that she wouldn't be by until well after midnight, plans with some friends that he vaguely remembered her telling him about earlier in the week. That just left him an empty apartment, beer in the fridge, and nothing particularly interesting on the TV.

Whatever it was that had finally pushed him, right now the emotions playing through his mind were too raw and confusing for him to decide whether he regretted it or not.

The new chapter had hit painfully close to home. Not that he––no, he didn't think of Javier that way at all. Except, as he'd read, Ryan couldn't help but recall the Racine case. All the dark ugliness it had pulled up out of his partner's past like junk from a drain, culminating in one of the biggest scares in Ryan's life. He was lucky to never have lost a partner, and before that case he couldn't have even begun to imagine what that would feel like.

But he'd wound up getting a big taste of it, and it wasn't something he wanted another sample of, ever.

Christ...he'd been so angry that night. Maybe Javier said he needed Ryan at his back, but what he'd heard was a brush off. Javi had meant to protect him by not letting him get involved, but Kevin Ryan wasn't some rookie who need to be protected. Esposito was willing to throw it all away_––_his career, and possibly his _life––_to help Thornton, and Ryan had been just as willing to do the same for him. He'd said as much to Esposito, told him he was with him until the wheels fell off, and he'd fucking _meant_ that.

He'd _still _been angry when they'd arrived on the scene, but when he'd seen Holliwell bleeding but _alive_ and no sign of his partner, he'd felt his heart had blown out like a tire. All the way up to Racine's office a single thought had run repeatedly through his head on an irregular loop, like a CD skipping it's way through a damaged track. He should have been there––he was supposed to be there––supposed to have his back_––_he wasn't there_––_his partner had gotten into trouble and he wasn't _with him––_all falling away into something small-voiced and gibbering and incoherent as the sight of the prone figure bleeding on the carpet had brought him sliding to a halt.

Ryan scrolled back up to the paragraph about the shootout. Yeah. He could see it.

Javier had been too preoccupied with Thornton at that point for him realize they had all thought the worst. And as crazy as things had gotten afterward, between trying to make sure what they had on Racine would finally manage to stick, and the rest of the maddening fall-out of his ex-partner's return from the dead, he probably never had. But the ugly, watery-sick feeling had hung around for a long time before Ryan could scrub it out of his mind.

Ryan tossed back the dregs of his beer, but it didn't wash away the fear he was tasting once again in the back of his throat.

The passage of several hours found him much the same, only realizing how late it had gotten when he heard the jingle of keys at the door. He closed his browser before she entered, turning to look up into a disapproving frown. An odd wave of guilt swept over him, leaving his mouth dry even before he followed her gaze to the six empties at his elbow. Counting with a flicker of surprise, he realized belatedly that he had also skipped dinner. The details of his case had been bad enough, and contemplation of the past had killed any appetite he might have had left.

If an empty stomach and a lonely six-pack could explain away the tightness clenching his stomach and the heat staining in his cheeks, he was going to stick with that.

Jenny knew him well enough to recognize the signs of a really hard day, but apparently not enough to realize he wouldn't want to talk about it. She always worried, always would _worry_, and he never knew what to say. Her persistence followed him all the way into the bedroom. He deflected with a beer-sour kiss, swallowing her questions and her concern. Neither his head nor his heart were in the game, but the parts that need to be up for it responded well enough. Both of them dog-tired, and with the slick, sick spin of alcohol in his gut what followed was all dulled blue eyes and fumbling fingers. Far from his finest.

Afterward he lay in bed, arms wrapped around her still form. For the moment most of his darker thoughts had been scrubbed out by the fizzy rush of one chemical or another in favor of numb, leaden haze.

Still, sleep was painfully slow in coming.


	5. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four: Which Begins With Angst, and Ends With an Incredibly Lazy Pun**

_As Gabrielle swept past him without a word, Xavier swore under his breath. _

_He thought it might have been the fifth or sixth time she'd done it since had walked through the door that night. Once right after he'd come in. Once in the bedroom when he'd gone to strip off the tie and jacket, unbutton and just breathe for a while... He hadn't been counting. Often when she was in a mood like this he _would_ count, but the only point in that was so he could site the exact number of times when he complained to his partner the next day. Tonight, his mind was otherwise occupied, in thinking about said partner, and it just wasn't in him to pay that much attention to the way his wife was passive-aggressively ignoring him. _

_She probably would be for most of the night._

_For the moment, Ochoa couldn't bring himself to care all that much. He was sure he would regret it later, but he really didn't feel up to talking right now. He would take even this pretense of peace while he could get it. It was frustrating when she was like this. That hurt, angry silence could be a lot to deal with. It was worse than fighting with her. He knew how to deal with it when she chewed him out, but there wasn't anything he could do when she chose to say nothing. Inevitably the pressure would build, and he knew that when she finally _did_ decide to start that fight it would be that much worse. _

_All this drama just because he hadn't called after he got off shift. _

_She always wanted him to check in after work. She worried. She had _always_ worried. When they had first married he hadn't known quite how to handle that. He had always hoped, quietly, that she would just get used to it, accept the uncertainty that came with his job. He thought she'd understood it was part of the package when she married him. Now, four years into their marriage, it didn't seem things had turned out that way. _

_Xavier was just beginning to accept the likelihood that it never would. As much as he hated the thought, this wasn't the first time he found himself facing the possibility that they wouldn't last. He'd known that there was a dramatically high percentage of divorce within the police force, but he'd never thought they'd end up part of that statistic. Right now, feeling beaten down and defeated on more than one level, it feels more like a certainty. He wasn't sure how to handle _that_, either. _

_His loss at how to handle things seemed to be the theme for the evening._

_She was angry at him for not calling when he finished his shift, and the reason he'd forgotten to call was because he'd been too preoccupied worrying about Raley. _

_It wasn't just the kiss that bothered him. If he really thought about it, the kiss wasn't even what bothered him the most. What bothered him was the fact that Cal had up and left work without talking to him about it. Xavier liked to think he knew his partner fairly well, and with Raley he had always counted on the reverse to be true as well. But he never would have thought Cal would just bail on him without a word, and if Calvin could let himself get so twisted up over this..._whatever_ that he couldn't trust Xavier to have his back, then apparently he was wrong on both counts._

_"Trouble, baby?"_

_Ochoa looked up from the surface of his kitchen table to find his wife Gabrielle watching him. Her eyes had softened considerably from the irritation and hurt that he'd seen when he got home. A glance at the clock showed it was half past one in the morning. The beer he'd opened upon coming home sat warm clasped in his loose fingers, untouched the three hours he'd been sitting there._

_"Just the job," he answered, taking a swallow of his drink. Whether it was from the warmth or his mood it tasted bitter on the back of his tongue._

_The job. It's what he always told her—and _all_ he told her—when he came home from a bad case. There were certain things he could never bring himself to share with her. She knew what it did to him, but she didn't need to know the details. It was his job, knowing those things, coming home with his mind full of confusion and human ugliness._ _ He could spare her that much. _

_A bullshit answer every time he said it, but more so now than ever. He felt guilty this time, because _this_ time he wasn't sure who he was trying to protect. _

_If he chose to talk what was he supposed to tell her? "My partner kissed me" was the beginning of an argument he did _not_ need to have right now. He knew exactly where it would lead. She would get angry. She would over react. She'd ask him to switch partners, because she just wouldn't get it. She didn't understand Raley the way he did._

_Cal wasn't gay. And even if he were wrong and his partner was having some kind of...crisis, Xavier knew it had nothing to do with him. Raley always got a little batty when he was confused, that's all it was. He could turn into a total lunatic once something got under his skin. That's all this was, he just had to wait for _Raley_ to see that. Once Cal had the chance to work through it things would go back to normal. _

_Nothing worth losing his partner over. Xavier was sure of that much. _

_In all of this the one thing he honestly_ w_as sure of was that he wasn't ready to give up on Raley, not as his partner and not as his friend. They were a brilliant team, closer than brothers, and that meant more to Ochoa than he'd ever admit to anybody. He could already feel anger that would come if he were ever forced to deal with a challenge to their bond. Long after Gabrielle left him to his thoughts, that anger and his earlier dismal consideration of his marriage were the only explanation he could muster for the surprising uncertainty he felt. Right now, if she forced him to choose between them...? He just didn't know._

_Because marriages ended, but Roaches could survive anything._


	6. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five: In Which Attempts at Recrimination Turn Into Self-Incrimination**

Javier Esposito sat at his home computer, his posture oddly rigid. He was trying to keep from fidgeting. That wasn't normally something that was a problem, but right now he was tense and agitated. And with his finger resting on the mouse and the cursor hovering over "send" God forbid some stupid muscle-spasm betray him if he weren't one-hundred-percent _totally_ sure about what he was about to do.

He knew he was ten completely different kinds of idiot, and had cursed himself out mentally for each one—five times in English, four in Spanish, and once in Russian he'd picked up from Beckett—but he still hadn't decided who was to blame for this.

A case could be made for Castle, for hanging them out there for the wolves, but that was flimsy at best. A better case might be made for this unknown author. If he ever ran across "4n6goddess" out in the world, Javier was certain the outcome would be _interesting_ to say the least, but for now he was forced to let that one slide. Part of him wanted to blame Ryan. For reading Castle's book, for finding the fan story, and ultimately for being _Ryan_. That one might have been the thinnest case of all. The evidence would easily be torn apart in cross-exam, and then he'd end up having to plead the Fifth, because it was the only thing that would save him from self-incrimination.

But for all he was an imbecile, a _tarado_, a _durák_ and a moron, he still wasn't stupid enough to believe a verdict of "not guilty" could be reached at this point.

Esposito would have liked nothing better than to forget the whole damned thing. He had succeeded in that, almost without trying, for nearly a week before fate had decided to work against him. Fate and _Beckett__**. **_She was a big girl and could shoulder a little of the blame, because Javier was _certain_ the story would have faded from his memory entirely if she hadn't needed their eyes on that warehouse in Brighton Beach.

He remembered watching a movie once where scientists talked about boiling a frog to death. If you dropped a frog in boiling water, of course, it would realize the danger and try to escape. However, if you dropped that frog in cold water and slowly heated it to a boil it wouldn't notice that it was slowly being cooked alive. Whether that bit of Hollywood science were true or not, Javier thought it made a suitable analogy for what had happened.

They had parked close, hugging the shade at the back wall of the warehouse. In daylight, with workers coming and going and the sounds of traffic reaching them from the other side of the building, the spot couldn't have looked less like the lonely alley that Esposito had managed to put out of his mind. But as day wore down into evening, as business tapered off and the workers began to filter home, the atmosphere of the place was slowly transformed. Javier would never be able to pinpoint when the comparison first entered his mind, but once it had the memory of that stupid story had lingered in his subconscious like a subtle itch. He'd done his best to ignore it, turning down the radio slightly to distract himself by joking with Ryan about Castle's latest blunder with Beckett.

So, really, he was just fine. Until it started raining.

The weather had been close and muggy all day, but there had been no hint of clouds. They must have crept in some time after dark, because neither of them had noticed. They _had_ noticed the first tic-tic of droplets on the hood of the car, and the sound had brought their conversation stumbling to a halt. As the light shower picked up in momentum, the noise drove every thought out of Javier's mind but one. Judging by the tense set of his partner's shoulders, he didn't think Ryan had missed the significance either. They sat, mute, trapped in an unreal silence. For long, lagging minutes that felt like hours, neither of them could look at the other.

The situation was thankfully arrested when they spotted their guy leaving through the back exit of the warehouse. In short order they had arrested _him _as well. The creep hadn't put up much of a fight, though there was the minor complication of searching the nearby lot to retrieve the firearm he'd ditched in the chase. They returned to the station soaked and filthy but triumphant. If they were lucky they would have their murder weapon, the case could be closed, and as far as Javier was concerned, this awkward night could be written into the report and promptly forgotten.

Or so he deluded himself.

He was forced to reassess that conviction later, in the locker room. Forced to look it dead in the face when Ryan stripped out of his wet shirt and Javier found himself staring at the lean, pale musculature of his partner's naked back. He knew better than to attribute the sudden warmth to the weather or the goosebumps on his arms to the dampness of his clothes.

_Bobo_ .. But not stupid enough to believe he wasn't attracted to Ryan, and not _nearly_ stupid enough to believe it would end there.

The idea hadn't disturbed him as much as he might have imagined. More than anything he was simply surprised. Being with another man wasn't something he had even remotely considered before. Javier half hoped it was just shock, that he would come to his senses and be properly freaked out later. After all, if he was going to be okay with the idea, it would only make it that much harder to file in his mental "can't happen" folder.

And he didn't have a single doubt that was where that idea belonged. For one, Javier was pretty sure that Ryan wasn't bi or _whatever_ this attraction made him. Two, they were partners. Three, they were friends, and who hadn't managed to screw _that_ one up at least once? Four, the righteous _smack_ his Mama would give him right before he was forgiven. Five, the guys at the precinct if it ever got out. Six, Lord only _knew_ what Castle would put in his next book... He eventually stopped counting. It was all bad. _All_ bad. And that was without even considering Jenny, which was basically "full stop".

That cold practicality didn't leave him with much.

It left him home alone in front of his computer like a complete loser looking at a story based on a book he had once said he'd rather be waterboarded than read. Wishing it was about him. Discarding the fact that—in a twisted way—it technically _was_, Javier was faced with the sad certainty that he had reached the ultimate rock-bottom of pathetic that even in junior high he had failed to achieve.

It was totally messed up, but the more he read the easier it was for Esposito to see his life in the story. Gabrielle's issues with Ochoa's job reminded him a _lot_ of Jenny. At first he hadn't known what to make of the woman. Between the tie and her frequent calls to "check up" on Ryan, well...once she'd knocked _that_ off he'd grudgingly upgraded his opinion of "bitch is crazy" from "bitch is _seriously_ crazy". Not that she wasn't a sweet girl, she was just _so_ wrong for his partner. It was easy to mistrust that opinion in hind sight, but Javier still thought it was true. She was needy, and Ryan was just dorky enough to dig that a little bit, but it was a bad trait in someone dating a cop.

Javier was neither blind to, nor amused by, the irony that he was apparently playing Raley's part in this bizarre melodrama.

When he looked back at the screen the character's he'd entered hadn't changed, and the mouse arrow still waited patiently to finalize them. Once he did the words would be out there on the internet forever. The odds of them ever being traced back to him were miniscule, but that wasn't what was at stake. He would know they were there, and he would always remember what he had meant when he wrote them. Giving himself a rough mental shake at being such a girl about the whole thing, Javier clicked the button, the page refreshing to display those words on the screen.

_**fab54th:** It could never happen._

Four words, hardly a review 4n6goddess would appreciate, but they weren't for her. By saying it _couldn't_ happen he was admitting to himself that he _wanted_ it to, and the same four words reminded him that, even wanting, it was still impossible.

Esposito turned off his computer with a sigh, letting his forehead fall to the desk with a grunt. He seriously wasn't looking forward to Friday, even with the promise of beer and pizza and Ryan all to himself. Not that he could even consider canceling, if for no other reason because Ryan would immediately know something was wrong. And if Kev asked him, Javier wasn't sure he could actually lie about it. He didn't want something like that between them. But answering would make things all kind of awkward. He couldn't do that to his bro.

He had no choice but to muscle through it and try to survive.


	7. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six: Where, In a Backward Analogy, Things Left to Steep Are Heated to A Boil**

"Pick up, pick up, pickup, pickuppickup..."

Ryan paced, oblivious to the irritated, impatient words he was uttering under his breath. He was too busy fighting the urge to run out the door after Jenny. Whether the intent behind that would be to continue the argument or to beg forgiveness he wasn't honestly sure. attention he could spare from that struggle was occupied in the phone against his ear as he waited impatiently for someone to answer.

Finally the connection clicked, and both his muttering and his frantic motion slammed to a halt as Esposito greeted him on the other end of the line.

"_S'up, bro?_"

Ryan took a deep breath, trying to keep the agitation out of his voice. "You headed over here?"

"_Yeah, I was just about to._"

"Don't bother."

There was silence on the other end, long enough that for a moment Ryan thought his phone might have dropped the call. Listening carefully he heard some noise through the speaker, so he knew Javier was still there. He raked a hand roughly through his hair as he thought about the frustration riding his tone. Ryan sighed heavily, trying to muster up some composure, and when he spoke again the anger had drained out of his voice, replaced with an exhausted, reedy note of apology.

"Look, I'm sorry Javi, I know it was supposed to be my turn but can we have it over there tonight?"

"_You had a fight._" It was a statement, no confirmation needed. If that was uncertainty Ryan thought he heard in Javier's voice he couldn't put the finger on why.

"We had a fight." He acknowledged dully, rubbing a hand wearily over his face. Now that the energy raised during the argument was ebbing he just felt _tired_. "I don't... I don't want to talk about it."

There was another brief pause, as though Esposito was thinking it over. Maybe his fight with Jenny still had his head fucked up, because Ryan didn't think the thought should have hurt so much. Sure, he was changing their plans at the last minute, and no one really liked nursing a friend through relationship crap, but didn't think it was that great an imposition. It had never crossed his mind that Javier wouldn't have his back. The thought had him completely lost for a moment, wondering if there was a reason, if he'd done something—

"_Of course, Kev_._ Come on over_," There was an odd note in Esposito's voice that was almost resigned. Ryan couldn't help himself from making a small noise of relief. Which he realized must have sounded truly pathetic when Javier said, "_The beer's on me too tonight._"

When the door opened at Esposito's apartment, his partner looked him up and down briefly shaking his head. Ryan thought he probably looked worn down and defeated like he'd been stuffed in a locker. He chose not to say anything, and Javier did the same. Pushing his way inside past Javier's toward the beer on the coffee table and the game all set up.

"I ordered Thai. Should be here in ten minutes."

Kevin didn't bother with a response as he took his seat an picked up the controller, and soon Javier did the same. They played, but neither one of them spoke for almost half an hour. Even when the food came, Javier paused the game, paid the delivery boy, and passed a carton to his partner without a word. wouldn't ask, not right away, but Ryan could read the question in his eyes.

Ryan kept his eyes locked on his food, but his face grew hot as he tried to draw up the strength needed to spit out the words.

"She caught me looking at porn and freaked out."

Esposito's confused stare was about par for what he'd expected. It was so stupid.

"You're serious?"

"Dead serious, bro. She said she wasn't gonna come back tonight, but I didn't want to risk her changing her mind if she felt like making a scene."

Ryan _so_ didn't need that scene, ever. This one was bad enough. He waited for the joke. Ribbing over how inane the fight was, the inevitable "I told you so" or general comments about Jenny's mental health—because Esposito had never hesitated to make his opinions known on _that_ subject. In varied and colorful terms. Jesus, even a jibe about the porn thing. He was prepared for almost anything, but not the soft snort and neutral reply he got.

"Thanks for the heads up."

It confused the hell out of Ryan, leaving him with the uncomfortable sense that something was missing. It dawned on him only then how subdued Javier had been all night. Javier wasn't the dials-to-eleven type of energetic Ryan sometimes was, but there was usually _something_ there. Sometimes it simmered and sometimes it was at a boil, but there was always heat there. Tonight, it was like someone had turned down the flame under his burner to a flicker. Ryan idly prodded at his rice with a fork. Between Jenny's anger and Javi's unusually muted demeanor his stomach was so unsettled he didn't think he could eat.

He should have been glad to have the topic dropped, but he wasn't sure he could leave it unresolved. He acted like a goof a lot of the time, but Ryan was a very detail oriented person. It made him a bit of geek, but it was also one of the things that made him a good detective. It had been pointed out to him in the past, however, that it occasionally worked against him. Because he was just as capable of taking some small and insignificant item and using it to drive himself _completely_ insane. He could take a simple idea and worry it over until it was meaningless, or latch onto something hypothetical and obsess over it until his brain was fried.

And he _hated_ leaving pieces missing from a puzzle, even if that puzzle was something he'd really prefer no one else figure out.

What Ryan had told Javier about the fight was the truth, with the minor omission of a single pertinent detail: Jenny had caught him looking at pictures of _guys_. And honestly, yeah, he was forced to admit he saw how that could _look_ bad. She had been decent enough to let him explain that the whole thing wasn't what it looked like, because honest to God it was the truth.

Because he hadn't been _looking _exactly. It had been...kind of a test.

Of course, she had wanted him to explain _that_ one as well. He didn't want to lie to her, but he didn't think he could talk to her about it either. He even told her as much. Jenny, bless her heart, had sworn he could tell her anything. And either that was a trap or she was sorely mistaken, because it turned out that "I think I'm kind of into my partner" _wasn't _an answer she had been prepared to deal with. It didn't matter that he promised that he still loved her and wouldn't hurt her like that. That he promised her she had nothing to worry about, because he would _never_ do anything to jeopardize his partnership with Esposito.

She hadn't liked that answer.

Now, sitting right next to Javi on his couch, Ryan was discovering that he didn't like it much either. No amount of promises could change the fact that what he wanted was close enough to touch. The controller felt heavy and awkward in his hands like he didn't do this every other week. He allowed himself to swear, quietly, but still out loud. His game tonight blew hard enough to excuse it, but in his head he was cursing out Jenny, and Javier, and Castle, and 4n6goddess whoever they hell _they_ were for the parts they each played in the state of his royally screwed up life. Slamming down the controller, he let go the loudest curse for himself.

Because the idea of having Javi like that had snuck up on him, burrowed into his head and laid evil little babies all over his brain, but no gun to his head could have made him _like_ it. The fact that he _did_ was all him.

"Don't worry about Jenny. You probably just bruised her squeaky clean image of you, _honeymilk_." There was something odd in the way Javier said the nickname, but Ryan was too off balance to try and make sense of it. Esposito winced as though it had left a bad taste in his mouth and took a sip of his beer, shaking his head with a weak smile as he continued. "She'll get over it. And if she doesn't, well, I still say you guys hit the spare key stage _way_too early."

As lifeless as the smile was, it still caused Ryan's stomach to flip. Dragging both hands through his hair, Ryan stood and headed for the bathroom.

He stood in front of the sink for several minutes, staring down the drain as if it he could crawl down it and escape. When he finally managed to look himself in the eye he saw hreflected face and neck flushed red. Heat burned in his cheeks andchest, and other places that couldn't be excused by the few beers he's had, stoked by a nauseous combination of frustration, embarrassment and need. He wanted badly to run his head under the tap, but he would have to explain coming back with wet hair and that was an added complication he didn't want to deal with.

Shutting his eyes, Ryan tried to calm himself down. The phrase "I love him like a brother" skittered across his memory inspiring a half-manic, half-pained giggle. He just had to make it through the rest of the night.

_Yeah right_.

Ryan pressed his forehead against the cool rim of the sink with a quiet whimper, silently admitting to himself he was completely fucked.


	8. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven: In Which Esposito Finally Cuts to the Chase  
**

Deep down, Javier had known it was a bad idea from the start. But while his gut, his common sense, and his basic human decency were all screaming at him to find a safe way out of the situation, his heart and his libido had other ideas entirely. He should have found a way to call it off. He should have offered to take Kevin out somewhere, with noise, and people, and safe, _safe_ public indecency laws. What he should absolutely _not_ have done was let the man he was secretly falling for come over to spend the evening with him, alone, when he'd just had a fight with his girlfriend, and try to pretend everything would be okay.

Javier had _known_ it was a bad idea. The problem was that the _wrong_ thing had seemed like the _right_ thing at the time. He'd been aware that he had no control over Ryan and Jenny's fight, that as far as he knew he hadn't done anything to cause it and that it was irrational to feel guilty about it. And he couldn't just turn Ryan down. Not while he was hurting, not when they already had planned to meet, and _definitely_ not once he'd said his name so plaintively over the phone.

_I'm sorry, Javi_...

Funny how he didn't realize until that moment that Ryan had only started calling him "Javi" after the Racine case. Javier almost wished he wouldn't. Part of that was because it reminded him of Ike, and even though the man was alive and well and back home, three years mourning the man didn't just go away. But the other part, the bizarre part, is because it reminds him in a weird way of Ike's kid, Timmy. And with Kevin's dorky grin and those wide blue eyes of his, the last thing Javier could afford was to think of his partner as adorable.

Once he'd hung up, Javier had waited with a kind of odd detachment, as though he was afraid to feel much of anything at all. Dimly, he remembered asking where the hell that had been two nights ago in Brighton Beach, because it would have solved a lot of his current problems. But if he could just maintain, if he could sleepwalk through this night, he might just be able to survive it.

But that hadn't lasted long after he heard the knock on the door.

Opening up he was greeted by the sight of his partner looking very much like he'd been dragged behind a moving car. Ryan was a nice guy, but he was one of those nice guys with a temper. He wasn't an easy man to get angry, but once he got there Ryan could surrender to the feeling with a startling amount of abandon. He put all his energy behind every emotion he ever felt, and when he got mad, God help whoever set him off. Unfortunately for Esposito, the result tonight was a wild, rumpled, just-fucked look that, with the tiredness in Ryan's eyes, left him looking like someone had used him harshly and left him to find his way home.

As if Javier didn't already know he was going to hell...

They settled into the game in a way that was almost their routine but not. And as they played in silence, Javier tried not to fill the quiet in his head by thinking about the fight. It would be so easy for him to take advantage. Use it, push Ryan the right way, and he _would_ break up with Jenny. As he found himself comforting Ryan, telling him not to give up, the words didn't even sound like his as they came out of his mouth, but thank _God. _ Because he could never really be _that_ guy. That the possibility had even occurred to him was tragic enough.

It was while Ryan was in the bathroom that Javier finally decided that he couldn't do this. He just _couldn't_. Couldn't ignore it, couldn't let it sit in silence between them without acknowledging that it was there. He needed to lay it out on the table. He needed to be honest with Ryan about how he felt about him, because until he did, he was never going to be able to let it go. But, while the decision was easy enough to make in his head, communicating it in any kind of coherent way was sure to be a challenge. He'd seen a lot of shit, on the job and even before that, so this wasn't even _close_ to the scariest thing he'd ever done, but trying to form a sentence in the face of blind panic was _never_ easy.

He was still trying to formulate how he would even begin that conversation when Ryan returned, and his words all got swallowed up by Kevin looking distressed and sick and so _lost_.

"You alright, bro?"

"The curry was too hot." And with his cheeks as pink as they are and his eyes slightly red, Esposito might have bought it. Too bad he knew the smell of Ryan's bullshit as well as his own. He _had_ to do this.

"We need to talk." He doesn't even pretend he missed Ryan's flinch.

"Talk about wh—"

"Don't, Kev. Just...don't. We're better than this."

Ryan dragged a hand over his mouth and chin as he stepped up to the table to retrieve his beer, sitting down on the couch. Leaning forward with his hand curled against his chest, Esposito thought he'd seen Ike's kid hold his teddy bear like that when he was younger.

Nothing else Javier could say now would make what he needed to say any easier, so he just said it.

"I think I love you."

His insides curled up painfully as Ryan let out a startled snort, his expression painfully straight.

"Like a brother?"

An odd hysterical edge to the way Ryan said it kept Esposito from assigning those words their usual meaning. Because that weird tone wasn't Ryan attempting to define what he'd just said as something else that was safe, and it wasn't the beginning of the healthy freak out Javier was half-expecting. It wasn't even the uncomfortable panic he'd been dreading. It was something a little sick and a lot guilty and familiar...and suddenly Esposito _knew_. Knew what Ryan must have figured out just ahead of him, because he could see his change in posture when the tension dropped and the rush of breath he'd been holding turned into soft, pained laughter that had his shoulders shaking.

Javier was dimly aware of his mouth hanging open helplessly and shut it. There was really nothing to say. As the tension between them collapsed Javier found himself laughing too. Laughing at everything that was funny. Laughing harder at everything that wasn't. Laughing until their lungs ached and their eyes ran. When the fit finally left them nursing a couple of beers as they sprawled boneless and quiet on the couch, shoulder against shoulder, heads touching, Esposito realized with a bit of dim surprise that it probably didn't look much different than the end of any other Madden night.

Except that _everything_ was different. It had taken less than a week, but their lives had both been turned inside out.

"So...when?" Ryan asked breathlessly, voice a little rough and croaky. Esposito didn't let himself think that it was anything other than hoarseness from laughing. And he didn't even have to ask.

"Thursday. Brighton Beach." He heard Ryan groan softly, obviously remembering the rain. "You?"

"Tuesday." He answered pathetically. "I don't even have a good excuse like that."

"Loser," Javier turned to look at him with an affectionate smirk. Ryan exhaled softly.

"What the fuck are we doing Javi?"

"Apart from slowly losing our minds? I don't have a clue."

"We shouldn't—" Ryan began, but Esposito shook his head with a grunt.

"Bro, we've both read the same list of 'why we shouldn'ts' and it still got us here."

"Are you sure about this?" Ryan turned to meet his eyes, brows drawn down over that blue, and Javier thought maybe an 'adorable' Kevin was just something he'd have to learn to live with. "Like, _sure_-sure?"

"Kev, would you shut the fuck up and kiss me?"

Javier watched Ryan's blue eyes eaten up by black and couldn't even breathe.

"Sure. Yeah. Sure."

It wasn't Ryan's best comeback, but it truly failed to matter. His jaw was a little slack when their lips met, but it tightened up when he felt Ryan's tongue ghost along his teeth. If it was supposed to feel strange, smelling Ryan's aftershave, tasting beer, curry, Ryan's tongue, then obviously he had completely lost it. Because the only thing he felt was that if _this_ was what all the bullshit of the last week was really for, it wasn't that bad.

Well, not the _only_ thing.

Pulling back from the kiss he looked into Ryan's eyes. He didn't see fear, he didn't see doubt or regret. Running his thumb over his partner's cheek, Javier figured there would be plenty of time for that later if if was going to happen. He just knew they could do this, _try_ this. It wouldn't lose them anything that trying to forget it wouldn't have lost them just as easily. That long list of obstacles wasn't going to go anywhere, but he wasn't going to let the job, Jesus, _or_ Jenny rob him of the chance to give it a shot.

End


End file.
